The aim of present paper is to explore
personal & professional skills so that future career development can be
promoted through these skills. Current paper would help in order to prepare for
self-directed learner by exercising practicing such as organizing and managing.
There would be four modules for the current paper, first module would deal with
enhancing lifelong development for self-managed learning process, second part
of the paper would deal with taking responsibility for the personal and
professional development, third learning objective would be to deal with
implementation & review of personal and professional development and fourth
learning objective would be to deal with interpersonal and transferable
skills.

LO1

(a) Explain what is meant by
self-management learning. Discuss the benefits of self-managed learning to
individuals as well as organisations. Discuss ways in which lifelong learning
can take place both personally and professionally.

Self-managed learning is development of
individuals by themselves and organization should focus on self-managed
learning programs in order to develop their staff in particular direction.Self-management
process would help in order to develop skill throughout lifetime and require an
individual to set their goals and manage time. For self-managed learning
approach it is important for an individual to have concentration and motivation
(Bob, 2010). Self-management for individuals’
involves self-regulation activities such as monitoring, controlling and
directing for self-learning process.

Monitoring process would first assess
various strategies and depending upon performance particular strategy would be
selected. Evaluation of the self-management strategy needs to be done so as to
ensure whether adopted strategy is able to address the issues. Based upon the
monitoring and evaluation trusted resources would be reinforced for self-learning
process.

Lifelong learning process helps individual
to continually involve in the learning by contributing to the personal context.
In order to indulge in the lifelong learning process it is important for the
learners to evaluate themselves by SWOT technique (strength, weakness,
opportunities and threats). After conducting SWOT analysis a self-learner can
also adopt self-reflective learning process so that a continuous learning mode
can be activated for the individuals.

Carrying out personal SWOT would give
opportunity to examine individual weakness areas where improvement can be done
so as to indulge into continuous learning process through tools such as self-reflective
learning process and continuous professional development.Self-reflective
learning process helps in exploring personal views, judgment and opinion. Self-reflective
learning process provides chance for individuals to develop new skills at
workplace with help of responsibilities assigned to individuals. Continuing
professional development process helps in order to collect ideas and techniques
for the purpose of personal learning (Heinz and Rowena,
2004).

Some of the potential benefits of self-managed
learning process for individuals and organizations can be given as under:

For individuals

§Self-managed learning aimed at different learning
needs for the individuals

§Enhances practical experience for individuals so that
learning can be applied to workplace

§Self-learning process would inculcate flexibility
which is important for the organization in order to gain success

§Save time for organization towards training and
development

(b) Briefly explain Honey and Mumford learning style.

Learning style of Honey and Mumford was
based on the work of Kolb and four distinctive learning style or preferences
were observed which are as under:

Activist: Activist would involve themselves in new experience
without any bias. They live in present, happy to be dominated by new
experience, open minded and remain enthusiastic about new experience. They
would first act and then consider the consequences. They make use of
brainstorming to tackle problems.

Theorist: They would adapt and integrate the observations into
logical and complex theories. They would resolve problem through step by
step process and would tend to become perfectionist. They would analyze
and synthesis on the problems.

Pragmatist: Pragmatist work on new ideas, techniques and theories
for checking whether they are working. They search for new ideas and take
opportunity to experiment with them. They would attract quickly on ideas
which attract them.

Reflector: They will stand back and observe experience through
different perspectives. They would collect data through different sources
and would consider it thoroughly before making the final conclusion. These
people would consider all possible angles and implications.

(C) Based on Honey and Mumford learning styles,
identify, with justification your preferred learning style. Students should use
the Honey and Mumford learning styles evaluation form provided to help them
identify their learning style.

Based on the Honey and Mumford learning
style there are four major learning styles identified which are activist,
pragmatist, reflector and theorist. Based on the evaluation form of Honey and
Mumford assessment has been done on 40 questions as given in the appendix.
These questions shows the characteristics of a person and some of the characteristics
selected by me include like to be perfect about the things, don’t often take
things for granted, don’t like loose ends, believes in logical thinking, like
to explore things how they work and maintain proper pattern for meeting and
discussion.

Based on these characteristics overall
assessment of the preferred learning style comes out to be high on theorist
while low score on the other learning style parameters such as activist,
reflector and pragmatist. Score on other learning styles such as activist was
4, reflector was 3 and pragmatist was 2. Hence highest level of score has
obtained on theorist due to which preferred learning style would be considered
as theorist.

Key skills would include the deeper
understanding and analysis of the situation faced so that problem analysis can
be done. Developing logical sequence for the problem at hand helps me in order
to adopt the step by step process so as to sort out the problem. I don’t take
things for granted which allows me to work by remaining cautious on particular
situation and implement the set of practical solutions for the problem faced.

In order to accomplish the skill set I
require strong decision making skills and taking risk based on the assessment
of entire situation. I need to collect data through own sources and from others
in order to make proper analysis. This analysis would be helpful to make assessment
of the situation so that risk pertaining to a particular problem can be
accepted.

(c) Based on your personal SWOT analysis
and Skill Audit, critically evaluate how you may use your key strengths in your
current or future job. Discuss how your weaknesses may prevent you from
achieving your goals and how you would address these.

Key strengths such as logical sequence
development, doing things perfectly and analytical skills would help in order
to understand problem faced in the present job role. Problem assessment would
be done thoroughly by collection of data through various sources such as
primary and secondary sources. Further perfection at workplace would help in
attaining higher satisfaction for the workplace stakeholders. Weakness such as
absence of risk taking abilities may prevent from achieving goals as I would
not be able to try out new experiences. In order to handle the situation I need
to develop risk taking capabilities in me.

Current defined needs for the development
opportunity would be to gain knowledge and skill set to accomplish assigned
tasks and assignments in proper way so that present level of studies can be
completed and next level can be pursued. I am having opportunity to gain
theoretical and practical knowledge by accomplishing my current defined needs.
In future I am looking to explore strategic management discipline through
further studies so that high level of expertise can be gained in the subject. Also
by gaining appropriate skill set in strategic management I would like to become
entrepreneur in the strategic management consulting domain where in
consultation would be provided to the organizations into strategic management
area (Daniel, 2008). Hence future opportunities for
development have large scope and depending upon the level of development skills
gained future needs would be accomplished by an individual.

LO3

(a) Briefly explain your personal and career plans.
Identify and list the key skills required for your chosen career or educational
goals.

My personal career plan is to become the
human resource manager in multi national organization so as to handle the
position of recruitment and selection process for the particular division (Albert,
1997).
Being a human resource manager I would not be only responsible for recruitment
& selection but also for the appraisal, coordination, training and
development aspects among the employees working in the organization. Some of
the key skills which would be required for the chosen career includes below
mentioned:

Communication skills

Coordination skills

Analytical skills

Data collection

Managing relationship

Building network

Risk taking capabilities

Developing logical sequence for problem solving

(b) Set SMART objectives to reflect your personal and
professional development based on the needs identified in Task 2.

Based on the needs identified in Task 2
below mentioned SMART objectives can be framed for the personal and
professional development:

To develop risk taking skills by thorough analysis with practical
workplace situations in next 1 year

To develop skills for primary data collection by way of different
sources

(c) Construct a Personal Development Plan
to address your existing skills gaps and develop the skills needed to meet your
future career aspirations. Provide evidence of achievement where possible.

Personal development plan for the
individuals would help in order to understand their limitations and based on
their limitations this plan would provide them way out to combat these
limitations so that they can meet their personal and professional goals.
Personal plan for me would be based on the needs identification for specific
skills and planning should be flexible as per requirement of job and aspiration
changes (Albert, 1997). Changes in personal and professional
life take place rapidly and individuals need to be attaining new skills &
abilities so as to deal with changes and convert opportunities into their
favour. For my professional development plan I would adopt below mentioned
stages:

§Accomplishing studies by gaining knowledge and
focusing on life goals so as to attain the goal

§Developing curriculum vitae so as to apply with
organization of my domain to seek employment in order to apply knowledge gained
in classroom

§Development of short term goals so as to review performance
on continuous basis and collecting short term goals in order to reach to the
long term career goal

§Carrying SWOT analysis and monitoring personal
performance of regular basis so that improvement in key areas can be made (Hamilton,
2003)

§Deciding a time frame for each short term goal, long
term goal and different stages of life

§Reviewing the personal & professional plan so as
to judge performance and to make changes required if any

(d) Critically reflect on your own
learning against the aims and objectives set out in your personal development
plan. Review and update your development plan.

My career path seems quite clear but as
moving along the path for attaining career goals there would be several hurdles
which needs to be sorted out to reach that final outcome (Daniel, 2008). The first issue would be my character
as I am not having definitive character and dependency which can create biggest
hurdle for me in attaining career goal. In order to deal with the issue it is
important to evaluate personality and improvise in it as per the career goal
requirement. Second issue faced by me would be time management as I am little
careless about time and never set time bounded goals for myself (Heinz
and Rowena, 2004). In order to deal with the time management issue best possible way
would be to develop time chart for small term goals for my life which would be
reviewed on short time duration so that time required for each goal and taking action
according to time. Third possible issue can be communication skill, though I
have effective communication skills but in order to attain dream of becoming
strategic consultant my communication skill need to be further polished (Maslow,
2006).
In order to sharpen communication skill, I would attend communication skill
seminar and short duration program. Further I will indulge myself in self
learning activities in order to enhance my communication skills.

(a) Write a memo to your manager briefly explains
the findings of your investigation. Suggest ways to deal with the issues
identified. Your recommendation should including a strategy for effective time
management.

In the investigation made basis on the
customer complaint it has been found out that there is lack of personnel in
hotel due to which 2 or 3 people have to handle entire work for the check in,
check out, telephone booking and email communication. Hotel staff is short of
time due to which customers have to wait little longer for their check in and
check out. For the problem of credit card payment, new personnel have been
hired who was not aware of the process but finally made the payment without any
additional charge to the customer. It is important for the staff of Star-Tel to
manage time effectively for enhancing customer service.

In order to adopt effective time
management strategies below mentioned steps should be followed:

As communicated through mail that your experience
during last stay at Star-Tel was not pleasant and we are really concerned due
to this. You have reported on the issue of time consumption in check in and
check out at hotel and issues with payment from your card.

We have investigated the entire issue and found out
that this happened due to shortage of staff on the particular day which has
been resolved at present and now we ensure time of 5 minutes for check in and
checkout process. We offer you 25% discount so that you can come back to our
hotel and can have experience of the good services from Star-Tel.

Learning
Styles: Honey and Mumford

Summary

Learning styles can be classified
as activist, reflector, theorist, pragmatist following Kolb’s learning
cycle: Do, review, learn, apply.
Each learning style describes preferences in the way the student
likes to learn, and has advantages and disadvantages

Honey and Mumford,
1986 Learning style
questionnaire 1

Think about your
college work when answering the questions:

1 I like to be absolutely correct about things.

2 I quite like taking risks.

3 I prefer to solve problems using a
step-by-step approach rather than guessing.

4 I prefer simple, straightforward things
rather than something complicated.

5 I often do things 'just because I feel like
it' rather than thinking about it first.

6 I don't often take things for granted. I like
to check things out for myself.

7 What matters most about what you learn is
whether it works in practice.

8 I actively seek out new things to do

9 When I hear about a new idea I immediately
start working out how I can try it out.

11 I take great care in working things out. I
don't like jumping to conclusions.

12 11ike to make decisions very carefully and
preferably after weighing up all the other possibilities first.

13 I don't like 'loose-ends', I prefer to see
things fit into some sort of pattern.

14 In discussions I like to get straight to the
point.

15 I like the challenge of trying something new
and different.

16 I prefer to think things through before coming
to a conclusion.

17 I find it difficult to come up with wild ideas
off the top of my head.

18 I prefer to have as many bits of information
about a subject as possible, the more I have to sift through the better.

19 I prefer to jump in and do things as they come
along rather than plan things out in advance.

20 I tend to judge other people's ideas on how
they work in practice.

21 I don't think you can make a decision just
because something feels right. You have to think about all the facts.

22 I am rather fussy about how I do things—a bit
of a perfectionist.

23 In discussion I usually pitch in with lots of
wild ideas.

24 In discussions I put forward ideas that I know
will work.

25 I prefer to look at a problem from as many
different angles as I can before starting on it.

26 Usually I talk more than I listen.

27 Quite often I can work out more practical ways
of doing things.

28 I believe that careful logical thinking is the
key to getting things done.

29 If I have to write a formal letter I prefer to
try out several rough workings before writing out the final version.

30 I like to consider all the alternatives before
making up my mind.

31 I don't like wild ideas. They are not very
practical.

32 It's best to look before you leap.

33 I usually do more listening than talking.

34 It doesn't matter how you do something, as
long as it works.

35 I can't be bothered with rules and plans, they
take all the fun out of things.

36 I'm usually the 'life and soul' of the party.

37 I do whatever I need to, to get the job done.

38 I like to find out how things work.

39 I like meetings or discussions to follow a
proper pattern and to keep to a timetable.

40 I don't mind in the least if things get a bit
out of hand.

Learning
styles questionnaire 1—scoring

For each question you ticked above, put a 1 beside the question
number in the columns below. Add up the
ls in each column. For example if you
put a 1 next to three question numbers in the activist column, then your
activist total is 3.